The Interface

When launching Lightroom for the first time you will be presented with a dialogue box stating "Lightroom room catalog was not found.". You will have the option to Choose a Different Catalog or Create a Default Catalog. You can choose the location to store your catalog.

It is worth remembering that the catalog is a database that contains the information about your images. It is is not the images. Where the images are stored is covered in Importing.

Most of Lightroom's interface interface is divided to four main sections.

Nav bar - Top of the interface. this allows quick navigation between Lightroom's modes. In this course we will be focusing on Library and Develop.

Navigation - The areas on the left. This lets us select the folders we've imported or collections we've made to make their images visible in the centre.

Image viewer - The centre of the interface. In library mode this area can display one or many image depending on our zoom level. This area can also be used for side-by-side comparisons.

Editor - The area on the right. In library mode this area has quick access to basic developing options, key wording and metadata.

Activity

Download the example catalog and try completing following tasks.